


Crown of Clowns

by ADreamer67



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Thor (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, No Incest, No Slash, No Smut, Panic Attacks, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-Thor (2011), Survivor Guilt, Thor (Marvel) Has PTSD, Thor (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Thor (Marvel) is Not Stupid, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23796250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamer67/pseuds/ADreamer67
Summary: Thor's coronation is in a week, and Loki is desperate to keep his block-headed brother from the throne. Committing treason seems a step far, however, so he makes a decision. He'll use a spell to look into the future. If Thor's reign is a disaster, he'll go ahead with his plan. If by some miracle everything is fine, then he'll let Thor be crowned.The future is not what he expected.For one thing, Thor thinks he's a hallucination. And that's just the start.
Relationships: Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 40
Kudos: 348





	Crown of Clowns

**Author's Note:**

> I got bit by a plot bunny and look where we are now. Excuse me while I go scream in *wips that I should be working on*
> 
> beta read by the wonderful [lovelylittleloki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelylittleloki/pseuds/lovelylittleloki) <3

The spell waited on the table in front of him, seemingly innocent. Faded ink on curling, yellowing papyrus, ripped at the edges and delicate as spun glass, ready to crumble away to not under an indelicate touch. Those who didn't know the language of magic would see nothing suspicious about it.

_I_ , Loki thought, _will be in no minor amount of trouble if I am caught_. His father would kill him. His mother would feed him to the vultures by hand, piece by piece and limb by limb, beginning with his eyeballs. But he had no choice. _Yes you do_ , a small voice said, _just go ahead with it_. But that was an even worse decision—he might as well work his way up the ladder of rash decisions. Loki sighed, reading over it again. The spell he was holding was impossible. Any mage worth the title would say so without a second thought. From the moment he began practicing seidr, he'd had it drilled into his head what magic could and could not do. Manipulate time was very squarely in the realm of _could not_. It was impossible. Only the Time Stone could manipulate time, and that was a fact.

Sorceror Radgur evidently didn't agree with said fact, judging by the spell in front of him. Another mage might have tossed it aside, perhaps even burned it on principle, but Loki had decided to tuck it away when he discovered it, many centuries before... and it looked feasible to him. Certainly not without a great deal of power and focus, but the spellwork in front of him... it felt right. He believed it would work. He knew it would work. He could see it, in his mind's eye, the way the seidr would move... and he knew he could accomplish it. The notes made by that long-ago mage said that he hadn't succeeded in it, but he continued to profess that it was possible. Loki supposed now he would be either proving or disproving it.

It would take some time to set up. Loki pressed his lips together. It was best he get started. The sooner he got the spell over with, the sooner he could adjust his plans accordingly.

It took two days of preparation before he attempted the spell. He adjusted it to send himself a decade into the future—not so long, a good bit of time to get a feel for how Thor’s reign would go without needing a staggering amount of power to complete the spell—and procured a sample of Thor’s blood so the spell would bring him directly to his brother’s location. Pathetically easy to get from the training ground. And now, at long last, he was ready. He spent several hours straight warding his rooms, until even the backlash from a spell with the level of power time travel required would do no damage (he hoped). He also layered wards over himself, following that by thoroughly barring his room against entry, and finding all the supplies he would need for the casting.

On his hands and knees, he marked the floor with an ivory, chalk-like paste made from several ingredients that held spellwork well and long, in a circle. Runes for focus and clarity, extra protection runes and runes to collect and store raw power should he somehow not have enough himself and require a source to draw from. The marked-out circle would form his casting space. Loki rarely bothered with a casting space, or anything beyond a few basic warding spells. When he did a spell, he simply did it. Only a spell of such magnitude as the one he was attempting would convince him to create a casting space. It was a crutch, undoubtedly, but he was falling back on each and every magical failsafe he knew for this venture.

He stepped into the casting space and sat down on the floor. The items he needed were already inside it—bringing yourself into a casting space was one thing, but ferrying magical items over the fragile web of runes could sometimes ruin them, and he was not going to redraw a casting space after spending so much time on it. A blend of herbs waited in a stone bowl in the center of the space, and next to it a flint and steel. Conjuring fire in the midst of such a delicate balance was asking for disaster, and so he sparked a flame and lit the herbs in the mundane, seidr-less way. The air in front of him began to waver and shimmer after a few minutes of waiting and watching the blue-tinted smoke waft up from the small fire in delicate wisps and curls. The herbs had done their work, and the natural magic around him—the fabric of the universe, if you were feeling pretentious—had been softened, turned more conclusive to molding. No more magical crutches, no more stalling. It was time for the true casting.

In a clear voice, he recited the spell, drawing in the air with his hands to guide the magic. He could feel great swaths of power responding to his will—the air seemed to grow denser, and his ears popped. The pressure grew stronger the longer he spoke. He said the last word of the spell, finished the final gesture, and the universe _squeezed_ —

—and spat him out again. Loki all but faceplanted on the ground, landing hard on his hands and knees as he desperately gulped in air. He reached for the collar of his tunic and tugged at it, as if that would help him respirate quicker. Something in his mind was shrilling at him, but he was so focused on _air_ that he almost forgot about it, until—

“Loki?”

Internally, he swore, still trying to regain command over his breathing. That was Thor’s voice, he’d gone to the future and he’d been spotted, what an _idiot_ , he should have taken precautions—

Someone was sniveling. Loudly, in a horrifically snotty way. Like a pig trying to snort mud out of its nose after burying its face in the muck. If Thor allowed such a thing in his court, Loki thought distantly, he should under no circumstances _ever_ become king. It was revolting. _Focus_. He had to find a way to explain his sudden appearance away—hopefully he hadn’t changed the cut of his hair in ten years, though really why would he?

He pushed himself up off of the floor—and his jaw dropped as he finally took in his surroundings. This was no Asgardian court—this was the hut of a pig, and a particularly repulsive one at that. No, this was the hovel of a _Frost Giant_ —Thor had probably started hunting the things after years of spoiling after it and he’d appeared in the middle of a hunt—oh, he hoped his future self wasn’t already there, that would be extraordinarily difficult to explain away. Quickly, Loki allowed himself to scan the room. Small, dim, dirty, with rags that were presumably clothes littered on every surface, bottles of liquor in various states of empty piled everywhere or shattered on the floor... the molding remains of some sort of foodstuff sitting in a large stain, and the _smell_. Loki tried not to gag.

”Oh, sorry, sorry,” Thor blustered. “Oh, this is so embarrassing, hang on—“ a large, ox-like beast lumbered forward to throw a rag over the foodstuff on the ground— “there, that’s better. Sorry about that.” The beast turned, and once again Loki stared.

That _thing_ could not possibly be Thor.

Golden hair greased and grimy, falling in terrible tangles that barely brushed the tops of his shoulders. A frizzy, unkempt beard filled with crumbs and sticky with drink spilled down his face, pointing like an arrow to his naked stomach, bulging with the same girth as Volstagg the Voluminous. His trousers were thin, gray, and thoroughly stained, and his feet were bare. Almost as startling as his gut was the gaping hole in his face where a right eye should be—an empty socket, angry and red, highlighted by a faint scar bisecting his eyebrow and reaching down his cheek.

”I,” Loki said, thin and strained, “have clearly made a mistake.” He had gone mad. There was no other explanation. What everyone had always said was indeed true—there was no basis to time travel, none, and he’d tried and look what it got him. A hallucination of his perfect, golden brother living in literal squalor. It should have satisfied him to see Thor brought so low. It didn’t. “Is this my conscience trying to dissuade me from the treason thing?”

Thor laughed wetly, and blew his nose—into his _hand_ , which he then wiped on his trousers. “Treason—good old Loki. Funny.”

Loki ignored him, trying to think. In theory, he didn’t have to do a return spell—he simply had to end the spell and he would snap back into his proper life where he could drink several flagons of ale—or not, he corrected as he stepped back and the heel of his boot crunched another liquor bottle—and forget this little incident. “I’ll be leaving then!” He remarked in a fake cheerful voice.

The false-Thor’s expression turned to utter terror—and he lunged. “Don’t leave me!” He bawled, wrapping himself around Loki and clinging like a burr. “D-don’t,” _sniff,_ “l-l-leaaave meeee!”

Loki froze. This was a development.

”I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” the Thor was babbling. “J-just don’t go, please don’t go, please don’t leave me here alone, please brother please—“ his voice cracked and soared upwards on a wail. “ _Please_.”

False though he may be, some part of Loki couldn’t leave his brother blubbering so. Carefully, he patted him on the meaty shoulder—which prompted a new wave of sobs. He was sorely tempted to simply end the spell and leave (hopefully), but fear of bringing the false-Thor back with him stayed his hand. He just had to get away...

”Sorry, so sorry,” Thor whined into his shoulder. It was pathetic, and it made Loki’s stomach curl. “S-s-s- _sorry_!”

”I’m not leaving you,” Loki lied. Slowly, the sobs calmed.

”Sorry,” the maybe-Thor (Thor never, ever, ever apologized) said again. He stepped back a bit, but kept his hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Ha, look at me, begging a hallucination to stay,” he said. Loki didn’t know what shocked him more—that his hallucination apparently thought that _he_ was a hallucination, or the loathing in Thor’s voice. A kind of loathing Loki knew all too well. “Do you want something to eat while you’re here?” he asked brightly. The non-sequitur made Loki’s head spin.

Pulling Loki by the hand, maybe-Thor dragged him into another, even more cramped and filthy room. Dirty dishes were piled high on every surface, and the liquor bottles were beyond numbering. It was, Loki had to guess based on the sheer volume of such things, supposed to be a kitchen. Still clutching Loki's hand in one sweaty paw, Thor bent over to rummage through a cabinet. His pants slipped down over his rump when he leaned down, and Loki averted his eyes before he could witness his supposed brother lose even more of his dignity, if he even had any in the first place. _Is this my subconscious punishing me for thinking of treason?_ Loki wondered yet again, but he dismissed that possibility. He would never come up with something so... pitiful. He could never imagine Thor, perfect, beloved Thor, in such straits. This had to be a product of the spell he had done. Somehow. _What if this really is the future_ , a small part of him whispered, but he easily ignored it. There was no universe in which Thor would become... this.

"Here," other-Thor stood up, turned around, and pushed a crinkling packet into his hand, with a small, rectangular box crushed under one arm. "Try it. It's good." Slowly, Loki tore open the silvery packet that had been pressed upon him, revealing two rectangular things that he gathered were some kind of pastry. "Pop tarts!" Thor pulled a packet from the box he was clutching, tore it open, and shoved one of the pastries into his mouth. Somehow he managed to fit the whole thing in one bite. "I'ffs g'ffd!"

Hesitantly, Loki bit off a corner of one of the pastries. Immediately, he spat it out on the floor—it wasn't like the room could get any more repulsive. "This is foul!" He screeched, dropping the pastries like they were poisoned—and they may well have been. They tasted more like a mishmash of chemicals than any 'food'. How, he wondered again, had the spell brought him here? How had it come up with Thor, larger than Volstagg, and poisoned pastries? It made no _sense_. Surely if the spell went wrong, whatever world it created would make _sense_.

Thor shrugged and stuffed another pastry-thing in his mouth. "Ah w'ke ih," he said, clearly displaying what he was eating. Loki turned his face away so he wouldn't gag. He bent down, picked up the pastries Loki had dropped, and proceeded to stuff them both in his mouth at the same time. A hail of crumbs spilled to the floor. "Ah cah fah sumfin elf," he said.

"No, thank you," Loki said, very polite and only slightly panicked. "That's perfectly alright. I don't need anything." He stood in silence, false-Thor still hanging on to his hand while he finished what appeared to be every pastry in the box. Once every last pastry-thing had been devoured, he tossed it in the corner, where it joined a pile of similar boxes. 

"Are you sure?" Thor asked. Loki nodded quickly, and the man-beast's face fell. "Sorry I don't have anything better," he said, shuffling his feet. His expression brightened again. "Do you—do you want anything to drink? I have beer, vodka, whiskey, schnapps—"

"No, no, no, I really am quite alright. I don't need any refreshments," Loki hurried to interrupted Thor before he got going.

Other-Thor sniffled, and that was the only warning Loki was given before he was forcibly hauled into another hug and wept upon. "I'm such a bad host," Thor blubbered. "I-I don't have anything you like, and, and my house—" he lifted his head and looked around, seeming to _see_ his surroundings for the first time. "It's disgusting. I'm disgusting," he cried loudly. "I-I can't do _anything_ right!" He got right in Loki's face, and his breath stank terribly of spirits. "S-s-sorry!" Abruptly, he let go, stumbled back, and covered his eye (and eye-hole) with his hands. "No, no, no, no, no," he chanted, starting to shake.

This was it. This was the opportunity Loki was waiting for. He was free, he could go home and get on with his life—but he didn't move. He stared, paralyzed, as Thor's tears turned to hyperventilation and then he crumpled to the floor, clawing at his chest. "Can't—breathe," he wheezed. Before had Loki made a conscious choice to act, he was kneeling at the fake-Thor's side, rubbing his back and shushing him. _Pathetic_ , he thought, _comforting someone who isn't real_.

 _Even if it is Thor_.

"There, there," the silvertongue placated awkwardly. "It's okay. I didn't... I don't need any hospitality. And you did your best," Loki finished diplomatically.

The sniffles and sobs slowed to a stop. "Best," Thor repeated. The venom in his voice plunged an invisible lance of ice through Loki's heart. "My _best_. I did my _best_. But then I _always_ do that, don't I?"

Loki stayed quiet. Something about this... a coil of dread pooled in his stomach. He didn't know what was going on. Suddenly and fiercely, he wished he had gone when he had the chance.

"I did my best to kill the Jotuns when you let them into my coronation," Thor said. "I told you to know your place, I mocked your seidr and put you down. I did my best to make myself look greater in comparison."

Loki stiffened. _It's not real_ , he told himself. _It's not_. _It's the spell, pulling from my subconscious_.

"Look what happened then. Me banished, father in the Odinsleep, you all alone to find out what you were."

"What?" The mischief-maker's voice cracked. _It's not real. It's not real. It's not real_.

"You know," Thor said miserably, tipping his face up to meet Loki's eyes. "That you're a Jotun."

Inside his chest, Loki's heart froze. "What," he whispered through numb lips. _It's a lie, it's a lie, it's a lie, it's a lie_. "I'm. I'm what?" His trembling voice soared up into a false soprano.

"A Jotun. A Frost Giant," Thor repeated innocently.

Loki fell back on his rear, the palms of his hands smacking against grimy tile to hold himself upright, but he didn't care. He had to—he had to—panic and denial merging together to create a knot in his chest, Loki reached for his seidr—and plunged it inward. Toward himself. _It can't be, it can't be, it can't be_ —but there was a spell, there, that he only saw because he was looking. A locking spell, small and unobtrusive. Locking him out of a single form, a form that he knew instinctively was his true appearance. He snapped the lock and reached for the pulsing ember of cold that waited beyond. 

When he opened his eyes, it was to the body of a stranger. Blue skin, scarred ridges, pitch nails that grew to a point—claws. Loki _wailed_.

Some part of him—the angry parts, the logical parts—tried to quantify it. _So this is why he never loved you, so this is why he favored Thor, so this is what is_ wrong _with you_. But the rage and fear and sudden understanding were drowned out by a feeling much more powerful. Grief. And so he lost himself to his tears, to his mourning. To despair.

When the grief ebbed, hatred was waiting eagerly to take its' place. But then—"I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msosorry," Thor's voice was babbling. Large arms were wrapped around him, holding him close. "I shouldn't have said that, oh, brother, I'm so sorry, please don't leave me, please don't be mad at me, _please_." Loki realized he was making a soft keening noise, and stopped.

"You knew," he managed to rasp. The hatred came surging back. "You—you _knew_ and you still, you said, you said 'I'll hunt them down—"

"No, no, I didn't know! Brother I swear," and now Thor was sobbing all over him again, "I didn't know when I said those things. I didn't know till after you," he gulped. "I didn't."

Loki shuddered. "How can you touch me?"

"I'm the worst brother in the nine rea—the _universe_ ," Thor said emphatically. "I should have—I should've been there. When you found out. I should've, I should've told you I loved you. No matter what. I-I-I failed, I—" Thor pulled away again. He curled into a ball on the floor, tucking his face into his knees, still weeping loudly and fervently repeating apologies like a prayer.

Loki watched him cry, reeling and numb. He looked back down at his arms—pale again. _His_ again. What if it was a—no, it was real.

_It was real._

"Thor?" Loki croaked, as the full situation finally hit him. He looked around with new eyes, at the grime and mess and liquor everywhere, at the dingy little cottage. Standing on shaky legs, he walked to a window and peered out, onto a small, provincial town on the edge of a cliff. Then back to Thor. "What happened to you," he whispered. The mischief-maker reached for his older brother again, this time much slower, much more cautious. He laid a hand on Thor's back, and the thunderer shuddered under his touch, a small whimper escaping his lips.

"Thor," Loki said again. The horror in him, the horror at what he was burned strong as ever, but was pushed aside by the depths of his dismay at Thor's state. That was his perfect big brother, crying on the floor of a dirty hovel, thinking he'd—failed? This, Loki knew with a clarity he'd never had before, could not stand. "How did you fail?"

Thor laughed, a choked and miserly sound. "How did I not? I... I was awful to you. I treated you like property, I never told you I loved you, I forgot about you, and then—" he was cut off by a hiccup, "and then mother died," the words shot like a lance through Loki's heart, but he forced himself to put the newfound grief aside. There would be time to process later. For now, Thor. "And I sh-should have _s-saved_ her. And, and then Father died and I blamed you but it wasn't—it was _my_ fault, if I hadn't been such a bad son—and then, and then _she_ came, and I wasn't strong enough. I—she killed the army, she killed m-my shield brothers, she took my eye, and—and I couldn't stop her. I couldn't even _pause_ her! I destroyed Asgard on my first d-day as king, what a great king I am, look at me, _look at me_! T-talking to a v-vison of the d-dead brother I couldn't save, couldn't save anyone, everyone died. I-I-I tried but I—I should have—I should have gone for— _Ican'tbreathe_."

Loki couldn't simply watch anymore. He pulled Thor into an embrace, crying himself. "Ssh," he whispered, pressing a kiss to Thor's temple. "You're alright. Breathe." Though not known for his patience, Loki waited with that of a saint for Thor to get his breathing back under control. When his older brother was at last calmed to the point of quiet sniffling, Loki still continued to hold him.

"Sorry," Thor mumbled.

Again, Loki kissed his brow. "Don't apologize," he whispered against Thor's skin. "It's alright." It wasn't, but he knew saying so would only hurt Thor worse. Tears gathered in his eyes, and he blinked them away. Now was not the time to break down over ( _monster_ ) everything. For once, Thor _needed him_ , and Loki wasn't going to leave him to flounder alone. Not ever, and especially not when he'd clearly been alone for so long.

Thor's tears dampened his tunic, but Loki didn't protest. "And then _he—_ " Thor gagged. Loki lunged for a nearby bin and pulled it in front of Thor just in time for him to lose the contents of his stomach. The thunderer continued to heave until nothing came up anymore, and then after. The noises he made were awful—half retching and half sobs—and the smell of alcohol completely overwhelmed the stench of bile. When the dry heaves halted, Thor tipped to the side and hit the floor with a wet _smack_ , like a fish tossed ashore. "Sorry," Thor gasped again, frantically and fruitlessly wiping at his face. "Sorry, I—"

Carefully, Loki righted his crying brother, and once again waited helplessly while Thor got himself under control. His older brother still wouldn't meet his eyes. "Go on," Loki prompted after a few minutes of nothing but Thor's heavy breathing. He didn't want to—but he _needed_ to know.

"He killed everyone," Thor breathed in a voice thick with horror. "He... he killed... I couldn't even save what was left of Asgard... Heimdall... and... and I was right there _I was right there why couldn't I save you_?!"

Loki didn't say anything. Again, Thor dissolved into a snotty, weeping mess, and he had no idea what to do. He watched, helpless. Useless. The thought of Thor being defeated so soundly, of _Asgard_ being defeated so soundly... the thought was surreal, almost as unnatural as Loki himself apparently was. Never in a millennium would Loki have imagined an enemy that Thor could not best—perfect, brilliant, shining Thor, with his mighty hammer and lightning temper—and yet it seemed that was not so. That Asgard had been bested, and more than once. _Mother dead. Father dead. ~~Not Mother~~. ~~Not Father~~_.

 _Me dead_.

With a sharp gasp, Thor sat up again, glancing around wildly and visibly relaxing once he caught sight of Loki, though his trembling didn't cease. "If I was good enough," Thor said—pleaded—finally meeting Loki's eyes as tears streaked down his face, "maybe you would still be alive."

Loki shook his head, wordlessly reached out a hand. Thor dodged it with a sharp wince. It was incongruous how such a large figure as his brother currently was could seem so small when he curled in on himself, and it hurt Loki's heart. "You're good enough," Loki tried softly, knowing even as he spoke that it was a beyond pitiful attempt.

Unexpectedly, Thor laughed. "I'm not," he said with certainty. "I had him. I had him. I stopped him, I'd _stopped_ him, I could have killed him. But I wanted it to hurt. I wanted him to hurt the way I hurt when he snapped your neck," Loki flinched—that image wasn't going to go away, "so I made it slow. I could have cut his head off right there, but I wanted it to be slow and I wanted it to hurt and I wanted him to know it was me. Because of me, because I wanted revenge, because of my stupid, stupid bloodlust and stupid temper and stupid _everything_ , he won." Thor's voice, strident and scathing, lowered to a devastated whisper. "Because of me, trillions of trillions are dead. I might as well have killed them all with my own hand." Again, Thor laughed, but the sound was less bitter and more crazed, high and wild and stuttering in its brokenness. "I may as well have just wielded the gauntlet myself. Saved everyone the trouble."

The gauntlet, the Infinity Gauntlet, someone wielded the Infinity Gaunlet, no _wonder_ Thor had lost—"It wasn't your fault!" Loki blurted. "Thor, brother, it wasn't your fault."

"If it wasn't my fault, then why didn't anyone say that?" Thor sounded as though he was begging for an answer, and Thor should never beg. "Why do they leave me up here? Why does no one seek out Asgard's King? Because no one wants me. And they shouldn't."

Loki turned his face away so this future-Thor, this terrible, dark, tortured version of his brother couldn't see his tears.

The worst part was that it was still Thor. There was that same temper, that same fire, but directed inwards. He was still recognizable, still himself, even under the pain that had consumed him. Loki wouldn't have imagined it possible for the Mighty Thor to fall so low. Thor was surrounded his whole life with family, with friends, with glory and riches and battle and everything else his heart had ever desired. In the deepest, darkest part of himself, Loki thought he had wanted him bereft of such things—not forever, only for a day, only enough to understand how he himself felt. Now he knew he could not bear to see Thor so alone, not for an instant. Now he knew better.

"How long, Thor," Loki asked, still hiding his face. "How long have you been alone?"

Thor hiccuped. "I... three years? I think. I haven't been... counting. And anyway," his voice took on an edge of steel that was oh-so-familiar but now turned back on its' source, "I deserve it. I deserve to be alone. Here, in my filth, forever. If for nothing else... then for what I did to you."

"I love you," Loki said. It felt ripped from his throat, torn out ragged and weeping blood, but he said it all the same. He had to. He couldn't let Thor think—he couldn't. Even reeling and terrified and oh, Norns he was a _monster_ , he couldn't let Thor think he didn't love him. Even if he could change nothing else. "Even when you hurt me, over and over for centuries, even when I hated you, Thor I swear I loved you always. I never stopped." That was true. Even though he didn't know the path his future-self had taken, he knew that nothing short of ripping his heart from his chest (snapping his neck) could make him stop loving Thor.

"I wish I could believe you," Thor told him, another tear skimming down his face. "But you're just a hallucination."

It burned on the tip of his tongue, the urge to confess what he had done, where he was from—that it was real, all real, he was real. Loki bit his tongue until blood burst in his mouth, and still after. _Would you do that to him?_ he snarled at himself. _Would you give him hope only to leave again, for whatever else has happened you_ must go home. _Would you give him hope only to leave him alone again, as everyone else has?_ The temptation eased, finally, though it still lingered. Loki reached for the spell wound around him, ready to snap the tether and return to the time which he belonged—and stopped. "Come with me," he ordered. As he hoped, Thor followed.

It took a little bit of guesswork, but Loki found the bedroom, and from there coaxed Thor into putting on a shirt and crawling in bed. And it was a risk, but—he pulled the covers over his brother, kissed his hair, and lingered until he slept. A quick spell set everything exactly as it had been when he arrived, just in case, and then Loki reached for and cut the tether that bound him to the time that was not his own.

He hit the floor of his room with a gasp, knocking over the bowl of burning herbs. If hadn't performed the spell in his workroom, on the stone floor, it could have become quite a problem, Loki noted distantly as the herbs finished burning up and left behind nothing but cinders. Exiting the casting space without bothering to clean it up—he'd do it later—Loki returned to his bedroom. In the center of the room, he stopped in place and slowly spun around. There, the tapestry his mother had weaved for him, that he'd had since his five-hundredth nameday. There, the antlers of the first stag he had ever felled on his own during a hunt, hung up on a wall. There, the sword Odin had gifted him the day he passed his first test in warrior training.

All of it was lies.

Loki screamed, and lashed out mindlessly with his magic, ripping things off the walls, grabbing items off of tables and flinging them every which way. A goblet shattered loudly against the wall, and Loki relished it. " _LIARS_!" He screeched.

Mother, a liar. Father, a liar. Thor, a liar. All li—Thor never lied to him. But Thor would hate him.

“ _I should've been there. When you found out. I should've, I should've told you I loved you. No matter what._ ”

Thor still loved him. Thor would still love him. Loki sank to the ground and cried. He was scared. He was confused. He was frightened for the future. But Thor would always love him, and maybe that could be enough.


End file.
